How does one even respond to this inane drivel?

When they finally got down to business, after being serenaded by a guitarist on YouTube, it took the Republican presidential candidates 11 ½ minutes Wednesday night for one of them to acknowledge that illegal immigrants are human beings.

Frankly, IÂ’m surprised it was acknowledged at all.

After all, the GOP has always considered minorities and foreigners to be human beings. It is one of our partyÂ’s founding principles and one which we have always stood for. That is something you cannot say about the Democrats, the Party of Slavery and Segregation.

Indeed, I canÂ’t help but notice that none of the GOP candidates acknowledged the law of gravity or that a water molecule is composed of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Maybe that is because we take those things for granted as well.

Probably a more informative statistic would involve how many minutes it takes for a Democrat to acknowledge that illegal immigrants have broken our nationÂ’s immigration laws.

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Posted by: Greg at 10:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If the federal government will not act, then the state of Texas must seize control of the border and control it.

The status quo is unacceptable.

Half of the nearly 3.5 million immigrants living in Texas are in the country illegally, the Center for Immigration Studies says in a report being released today.
Based on the latest Census Bureau data, the report said Texas has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of any state. It said that 50 percent of the state's foreign-born population — slightly more than 1.7 million people — are illegal immigrants. Only Arizona at 65 percent, North Carolina at 58 percent and Georgia at 53 percent had a higher proportion of illegal immigrants in their immigrant populations.

All sanctuary policies must be ended.

All public benefits must end.

Illegal employers of illegal aliens must be arrested , prosecuted, and jailed whenever possible.

End birthright citizenship for children of illegals.

No safe harbor. We have to turn up the heat so high that those in this country violating our nationÂ’s immigration laws depart on their own.

And let me say this loud and clear – every legal immigrant to this country is a welcome immigrant in my eyes. My only objection is to those who come to this country illegally. Only in the most unusual of cases should they ever be granted amnesty. And only after they have waited for their turn in a law-abiding fashion should those who return home and apply for a visa be granted legal admission to this country.

Posted by: Greg at 12:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If only the mean old federal government would quit treating illegal aliens like they've broken the law or something!

It was still dark the morning of Sept. 27 when armed federal immigration agents, guided by local police officers, swept into this village on the East End of Long Island. Within hours, as the team rousted sleeping families, 11 men were added to a running government tally of arrests made in Operation Community Shield, a two-year-old national program singling out violent gang members for deportation.

“Violent foreign-born gang members and their associates have more than worn out their welcome,” Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said at an October news conference announcing the arrests of 1,313 people in the operation over the summer and fall nationwide. “And to them I have one message: Good riddance.”

But, to the dismay of many of GreenportÂ’s 2,500 residents, the raid here did not match her words.

Only one of the 11 men taken away that morning was suspected of a gang affiliation, according to the Southold Town police, who patrol Greenport and played the crucial role of identifying targets for the operation.

The 10 others, while accused of immigration violations, were not gang associates and had no criminal records.

Instead, they were known as good workers and family men. When they suddenly vanished into the far-flung immigration detention system, six of their employers hired lawyers to try to find and free them. Some went further, like Dan and Tina Finne, who agreed to take care of the 3-year-old American-born daughter of a Guatemalan carpenter who was swept up in the raid, if her mother was detained, too.

“This is un-American,” said Ms. Finne, 41, a Greenport native, echoing other citizens who condemned the home raids in public meetings and letters to The Suffolk Times, a weekly newspaper. “We need to do something about immigration, but not this.”

No, what is un-American is the fact that folks like Mr. Finne and the New York Times are willing to allow our nation's immigration laws go unenforced. What is un-American is that we have no control over our border and any solution such folks offer is nothing less than a de facto amnesty which will, as history has taught us, lead to more illegals streaming across the border because they know they won't be stopped and will get lots of freebies unavailable back home. And what is un-American is the demonization of those of us who want to see a secure border and enforced immigration laws.

Please remember -- the only right these folks have is the right to be deported.

Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

Posted by: Greg at 07:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I continue to reject the notion that we can continue to allow folks to cross into the United States at will, and then wave a magic wand making all of them legal and on a path to citizenship.

However, I am more than willing to make an exception in the case of this particular illegal immigrant.

A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said.

The 45-year-old woman, who eventually died while awaiting help, had been driving on a U.S. Forest Service road in a remote area just north of the Mexican border when she lost control of her van on a curve on Thanksgiving, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said.

The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, Estrada said.

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.

The woman died a short time later.

"He stayed with him, told him that everything was going to be all right," Estrada said.

As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said. The boy was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson as a precaution but appeared unhurt.

"We suspect that they communicated somehow, but we don't know if he knows Spanish or if the gentleman knew English," Estrada said of the boy.

"For a 9-year-old it has to be completely traumatic, being out there alone with his mother dead," Estrada said. "Fortunately for the kid, (Cordova) was there. That was his angel."

Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, who were the first to respond to the call for help. He had been trying to walk into the U.S. when he came across the boy.

The boy and his mother were in the area camping, Estrada said. The woman's husband, the boy's father, had died only two months ago. The names of the woman and her son were not being released until relatives were notified.

Jesus Manuel Cordova could have simply moved on. He could have left this young boy to fend for himself, probably to join his mother in death. He didn't, which speaks highly of his character and his decency. This act of heroism, of fundamental decency, leads me to argue that our country should overlook his transgression against our immigration laws and reward Jesus Manuel Cordova with legal status in this country. He has more than proven his character and fitness to be here with this single act.

But I reject the notion put forward by this sheriff that seems to minimize the problem caused by illegal immigration.

Cordova likely saved the boy, Estrada said, and his actions should remind people not to quickly characterize illegal immigrants as criminals.

"They do get demonized for a lot of reasons, and they do a lot of good. Obviously this is one example of what an individual can do," he said.

But the reality remains that those who illegally cross our nation's borders are lawbreakers, and many are serious criminals who degrade the quality of life in this country, especially along the border. For every Jesus Manuel Cordova, I could point to a dozen pedophiles, drunk drivers, drug dealers, and other serious criminals (Angel Maturino Resendez, for example) who hop the border with impunity to avoid the consequences of their crimes in the United States.

That said, I hope that the Arizona congressional delegation quickly introduces legislation granting permanent resident status to Jesus Manuel Cordova.

Posted by: Greg at 05:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The New York Times once again takes all of us backwards, Mexican-hating rubes (who think immigration laws ought to be enforced and immigration law-breakers deported rather than rewarded) to task for our Neanderthal ways.

The nation certainly sounds as if itÂ’s in an angry place on immigration.

A major Senate reform bill collapsed in rancor in June, and every effort to revive innocuous bits of it, like a bill to legalize exemplary high school graduates, has been crushed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York hatched a plan to let illegal immigrants earn driver’s licenses — and steamrollered into the Valley of Death. Asked if she supported Mr. Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton tied herself in knots looking for the safest answer.

The Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, are doggedly out-toughing one another — even Rudolph Giuliani, who once defended but now disowns the immigrants who pulled his hard-up city out of a ditch. A freshman Democratic representative, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has submitted an enforcement bill bristling with border fencing and punishments. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, for whom restricting immigration is the first, last and only issue, says he will not run again when his term expires next year. I have done all I can, he says, like some weary gunslinger covered in blood and dust.

The natural allies of immigrants have been cowed into mumbling or silent avoidance. The Democrats’ chief strategist, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, went so far as to declare immigration the latest “third rail of American politics.” This profile in squeamishness was on full display at the Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas, when Wolf Blitzer pressed the candidates for yes-or-no answers on driver’s licenses and Mrs. Clinton, to her great discredit, said no.

This yearÂ’s federal failure will not be undone until 2009 at the earliest, while states and local governments will continue doing their own thing, creating a mishmash of immigration policies, most of them harsh and shortsighted. But the wilderness of anger into which Mr. Tancredo helped lead America is not where the country has to be on this vitally important issue, nor where it truly is.

The problem, of course, with this editorial is that it presumes bad faith on the part of those who disagree with its open-borders orientation. Having dispensed with the notion that one's opponents have anything of value to say, the author of the editorial is then able to insist that there really is no other solution but the one proposed in the editorial.

The other problem, of course is that the folks in the editorial suites at the NYT don't have to deal with the real problems of illegal immigration on a daily basis. Those of us closer to the border do. The county I live in just spent $100 million on unreimbursed medical care for illegal immigrants -- about $25 for every man, woman, and child in the county Add in the costs of educating illegal immigrant kids, incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals, etc, and you can see where the local costs are astronomical. The impact on our lives of the flood of illegal immigrants is simply beyond the understanding of northeastern limousine liberals -- and that is why Americans along the border are demanding what the editors view as harsh and inhumane policies that in reality amount to nothing more than insistence that the laws of this country be enforced rather than changed to make the lives of the lawbreakers easier.

It has, of course, been a couple of generations since the New York Times spoke for anyone except the pampered elite (if it ever did). And given that it is so out of contact with what real Americans think, feel, and believe, I'm not surprised that it would take the positions it does. After all, who will water the gardens, mow the lawns, and clean the pools of those who think that the New York Times editorial page is latter-day scripture?

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Posted by: Greg at 03:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It is time that this policy becomes the standard nationwide.

''It doesn't matter if you're trying to pay off funeral expenses, or take care of a sick family member," explained U.S. Magistrate Diana Saldaña, referring to the plight of another immigrant. ''When you cross the Rio Grande, you're going to be spending time in prison if the Border Patrol finds you — that's the bottom line."

There are legal ways to get into this country. Those who choose not to use them deserve to be rounded up, jailed, and deported -- and denied readmittance. They have already proved their contempt for our nation's laws, and are not welcome here.

Posted by: Greg at 11:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, the only reason that this problem exists is because every child of border-jumper born in this country is an American citizen -- and that means we must either let their law-breaking parents stay, deport the citizen children, or separate them. None of the options is attractive, as this article shows.

Federal immigration agents were searching a house in Ohio last month when they found a young Honduran woman nursing her baby.

The woman, Saída Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers.

The decision to separate a mother from her breast-feeding child drew strong denunciations from Hispanic and womenÂ’s health groups. Last week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rushed to issue new guidelines on the detention of nursing mothers, allowing them to be released unless they pose a national security risk.

The case exposes a recurring quandary for immigration authorities as an increasing number of American-born children of illegal immigrants become caught up in deportation operations. With the Bush administration stepping up enforcement, the immigration agency has been left scrambling to devise procedures to deal with children who, by law, do not fall under its jurisdiction because they are citizens.

“We are faced with these sorts of situations frequently, where a large number of individuals come illegally or overstay and have children in the United States,” said Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the agency. “Unfortunately, the parents are putting their children in these difficult situations.”

The problem, of course, is that if we do not keep the border-jumpers locked up pending deportation, many of them will skip out on subsequent hearings -- indeed, many of them have done so at least once in the past, as was the case with the mother highlighted above. And what looks like a particularly cruel practice is, in fact, often the best way of balancing the need for the child to be cared for in a safe environment with the need of the government to keep tabs on their law-breaking parents. And as I have often pointed out in the past, these immigration criminals do have an option to keep their families together -- accept immediate deportation and take their children with them.

The problem would, of course, be easily solved by modifying the current understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment (or by an additional constitutional amendment) to exclude the children of individuals not citizens of the United States (or, perhaps, of those not legally present with some sort of permanent status). That way there would be no question of balancing the interests of a citizen child and an alien parent in most cases. Alternatively, we could establish a legal presumption that an illegal immigrant parent is automatically an unfit parent, which would allow the courts to strip such individuals of legal custody of their citizen children and their parental rights -- certainly something that would end the practice of crossing the border to have an anchor baby.

Liberals, of course, are up in arms over this story. As is so often the case, they side with the law-breaker over the rest of society. But I like the question asked by Jimmie at The Sundries Shack.

If the women profiled here had been arrested for theft, would the New York Times have written such a sympathetic article about them? I rather doubt it.

Indeed, we separate mothers and children (and fathers and children) all the time when a parent breaks the law. Sob stories like this one are not about concern for the children -- it is about pursuing the open-borders agenda of the Left.

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Posted by: Greg at 10:49 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The open borders crew that seeks to embrace border-jumping immigration criminals often denounces the GOP as "anti-immigrant" because most Republicans want to see our immigration laws enforced. Well, what do immigrants -- legal ones, who followed the law to enter this country and become citizens -- think about the matter,

Their voter registration patterns tell an interesting story.

Minutes after taking the Pledge of Allegiance, new American citizens are urged to register as voters by Democratic activists who see them as natural party supporters who could hold the key to the 2008 election.

But with increasing illegal immigration threatening the economy and security of the United States, many legal immigrants anxious to uphold the laws of their adopted country are moving towards the more hard-line immigration stance of Republicans.

Even in CaliforniaÂ’s Democratic-controlled San Diego, sizeable numbers of AmericaÂ’s newly-minted potential voters said that illegal immigrants should be penalised rather than given an easy route to citizenship as most Democrats advocate.

“For a long time, immigration was OK,” said Sarah Wright, 49, a seamstress from Mexico who arrived in the US legally in 1986.

“But now, no more. A lot of really bad people come from Mexico and commit crimes.

“People are coming in and having two, three, four babies and going on welfare. Some are making money here and spending it back in Mexico.

"That’s not right. They should go back to Mexico and get a permit.”

Mrs Wright, whose American-born husband Ed served in the US Navy, was one of 1,591 people from 89 countries who became citizens at a ceremony in San DiegoÂ’s Golden Hall on Tuesday.

Nearly two thirds of them were from Mexico, whose border is just 17 miles from the city.

These are the sort of immigrants that the GOP embraces -- folks who follow the law, come here legally, contribute to our country and embrace the things that made it great. The Democrats, on the other hand, embrace a different sort of immigrant, one described perfectly by one of the new citizens.

“Those that do come into this country illegally are telling us that they are morally and ethically not trustworthy. They should not be here. It’s insulting to those of us who are here legally.”

So let's be really clear about this. The Republican Party is the party of law-abiding immigrants. The Democrats are the party that spits in their faces by supporting such immigrants. Remember that the next time you are called an anti-immigrant nativist by some liberal from the open-borders crowd -- or by an illegal immigrant who doesn't respect this country enough to follow its laws.

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Posted by: Greg at 08:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Mexican President Pendejo Felipe Calderón Cabrón thinks he can direct American citizens – including candidates for President of the United States – to speak or be silent as suits his beliefs.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón took the unusual step Wednesday of injecting himself into U.S. presidential politics, calling Mexican migrants "thematic hostages" of the race and urging candidates not to use them as a talking point.

Speaking at a conference here, Calderón criticized what he called "the growing harassment" of Mexicans in the United States and said his administration would finance a media campaign to underline immigrant success stories.

Calderón made his remarks one day before his environment minister, Rafael Elvira Quesada, is scheduled to release a report concluding that the U.S.-Mexico border wall is damaging the environment.

Calderóns statement on the U.S. presidential race caught many people here by surprise. Addressing delegates at a conference sponsored by the Mexican government agency that assists migrants, he said: "It is my duty to make a respectful but firm call to the candidates of the various political parties in the United States for them to stop using Mexicans in that country as thematic hostages of their speeches and their strategies."

Well, Mr. Cabrón, I’m sorry that the desire of Americans to secure their borders against the invasion of Mexican nationals from your corrupt, backwards nation offends you. I’m sorry that we need to build a wall due to the fact that your government encourages and abets these lawbreakers – as well as drug smugglers – in their crossing of the American border. None of the rhetoric or actions you complain about would be necessary if your government were to have done its job over the last several decades.

And Mr. Cabrón, your words serve only to underscore why we need to build that wall – and cut off all aid to Mexico. Americans will determine what is right for America, and what the policies of our country will be.

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Posted by: Greg at 01:25 PM | Comments (34) | Add Comment
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Odd, isnÂ’t it, that liberals regularly insist that states and cities cannot set their own immigration policies when it comes to enforcing our nationÂ’s immigration laws. Then, suddenly, these same liberals insist it is the right of states and cities to set their own immigration policies flouting our nationÂ’s immigration laws.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to issue municipal identification cards to city residents - regardless of whether they are in the country legally - and to double the amount of public money available to candidates running for supervisor.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who authored the ID card legislation, said the program is a smart public safety measure because it would make residents living on the social margins of San Francisco more likely to seek the help of police and could give them more access to banking services.

"People are afraid to report crimes," Ammiano said, referring to illegal immigrants who avoid local law enforcement authorities over fear of being arrested or deported by federal immigration officials.

The legislation would require companies holding city contracts to accept the municipal card as a legitimate form of identification - except in cases where other state and federal laws require other forms of proof of age, name and residence.

Under San Francisco's sanctuary ordinance, it is city policy that no municipal government personnel or resources be used to assist federal immigration officials in the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.

I ask it again – since San Francisco can’t secede from h US, can’t the US secede from San Francisco? That way they can set their own immigration policy and issue whatever identification documents they want. Of course, once San Francisco is no longer a part of the US, we can build a wall and keep the liberal fringe out in the name of national security. After all, they will have no reliable form of identification with which to enter the USA.

Posted by: Greg at 12:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bowing to near universal opposition, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to not pursue his plan to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens. Those not in the country legally will not be given an official government identification document and permission to drive without fear of being deported as the law requires.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer is abandoning his plan to issue driverÂ’s licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that opposition is just too overwhelming to move forward with such a policy.

The governor, who is to announce the move formally on Wednesday, said in an interview Tuesday night that he did not reach the decision easily. “You have perhaps seen me struggle with it because I thought we had a principled decision, and it’s not necessarily easy to back away from trying to move a debate forward,” he said.

But he came to believe the proposal would ultimately be blocked, he said, either by legal challenges, a vote by the Legislature to deny funding for the Department of Motor Vehicles or a refusal by upstate county clerks to carry it out.

“I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,” the governor said, “and we also have an enormous agenda on other issues of great importance to New York State that was being stymied by the constant and almost singular focus on this issue.”

In other words, in the face of opposition from the federal government, his fellow state officials, local officials, and the people of New York (and the United States), as well as likely defeat in the courts, Spitzer realized that his plan was doomed. And so the people win.

At least one liberal website is already frothing.

No, leadership is doing what's right. Gov. Spitzer needs to get some spine.

In other words, screw the people -- Spitzer should have gone ahead with the plan despite the disapproval of 3 out of 4 New Yorkers. After all, "leadership" consists in doing what the liberal interest groups demand, even if it is likely illegal and certainly opposed by the folks who are ultimately supposed to be in charge of government, namely the voters.

Just remember that, folks -- voting Democrat in 2008 means 4 years of a government that doesn't care what you think on issues of border security and immigration.

H/T Malkin, Fighting GOP, Old War Dogs, Assorted Babble

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Posted by: Greg at 11:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It must suck to have to be governor and have to listen to little things like the voice of the people. But it looks like that is what the governor of New York might just have to do in the case of his "licenses for illegals" plan.

Facing growing pressure from his own party, Gov. Eliot Spitzer indicated he had not ruled out rescinding a heavily criticized plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, according to published reports.

Spitzer's proposal has generated a politically charged debate that has reverberated in the presidential campaign. He said Friday he was standing by the plan for now, but he suggested he might consider backing off if he could not build enthusiasm for it, the reports said.

"I don't think there's ever been an executive, a president, a governor who hasn't put out ideas that at the end of the day there isn't support, and so things don't work out," the governor told reporters after meeting with Hispanic lawmakers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "But as of now, sure, I think this is the right idea from a security perspective. We'll wait and see."

Here's the problem, Governor.

The American people want illegal immigrants out of our country. We don't want them receiving government benefits or government licenses. We don't want sanctuary city or sanctuary states to give them refuge. Frankly, we want enforcement of our borders and state and local law enforcement to assist federal authorities in getting rid of those who are violating immigration laws.

Your plan was designed to do exactly the opposite, and so you got hosed.

The only good thing about your plan is that it may have harmed teh Hillary Clinton campaign due to her inept handling of the issue.

Posted by: Greg at 06:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is just what we need.

More than 80 House Democrats and Republicans yesterday teamed up to propose a new immigration-enforcement bill, saying they reject the Senate's two attempts at "amnesty" and signaling that only an enforcement measure can pass this Congress.

Led by Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, a freshman Democrat who won election with a tough immigration-enforcement message, the bill also challenges conventional wisdom by showing a large number of rank-and-file Democrats agree with most Republicans that the first step should be a get-tough approach on border security.

That new approach includes going after businesses that hire illegal aliens, better information-sharing among federal agencies such as the IRS, Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to track illegal aliens, and an increase in enforcement agents both at the border and in the nation's interior.

"The reason you're seeing so many of us standing here today, Democrats and Republicans, is this is the immigration reform bill the American people have been waiting for," said Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, a freshman who is one of 44 Democrats signing on as original co-sponsors, along with 40 Republicans.

Once we make it impossible for illegals to work (or go to school) in this country, they will start to self-deport. And even if they donÂ’t, attempts to illegally seek benefits to which they are not morally entitled will cause them to self-identify as illegal.

And, as always, my policy preference is as follows.

Round ‘em up! Ship ‘em back! Rawhide!

Posted by: Greg at 01:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Kid is busted for drugs at school. Cops are called. Parents are called. Cops determine the whole family are in the country illegally (smoking the pot that Americans wonÂ’t smoke?) and call the Border Patrol. Family gets deported.

Sounds like a happy ending to me, in accordance with the laws of the United States.

Unfortunately, students and administrators in the Tucson Unified School District disagreed. And now the cops have announced their intention to ignore, rather than enforce, the law.

>About a hundred students demonstrated outside a Tucson high school Tuesday, then marched five miles downtown to protest the arrest and removal to Mexico of a classmate and his family.

The students apparently did not walk out of classes but arrived at Catalina High School on ready to demonstrate and head to the federal building, Tucson Unified School District spokeswoman Chryl Hill Lander said.

Tucson police spokesman Sgt. Mark Robinson said at least some of the demonstrators veered off to congregate peacefully outside police headquarters.

* * *

School officials searched the backpack of a 17-year-old freshman who was incoherent, and when they found a substance that looked like marijuana, called police — standard procedure.

"Police were called in because there was marijuana found in a student's backpack," Lander said. "Administrators have the right to go through a backpack when the situation warrants, and the student was acting strangely, was incoherent. He wasn't able to talk and make complete sentences," she said.

Police called the boy's parents and asked them to come to the school. When they arrived, police asked to see their drivers' licenses.

The parents acknowledged living in the United States illegally with their two sons, including a sixth-grader, for a half-dozen years.

Police in turn notified the Border Patrol, who took all four people into custody.
Immigrants rights activists voiced concern about the incident, but Tucson police defended calling the Border Patrol as the appropriate action.

In other words, this is really straightforward. They weren’t even looking for illegals – they were dealing with a kid so stoned that he couldn’t see straight who got busted with drugs. The discovery of the immigration status was merely incidental. This is the classic case of when everyone OUGHT to agree that rounding them up and sending them home is appropriate

IÂ’m particularly incensed by this comment.

Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, said allowing immigration agents into schools could create more mistrust and fear in the immigrant community.

More mistrust? More fear? You say that like it is a bad thing. I want them so damn scared that they are pissing their pants every time they set foot on the streets of our nation or hear a knock on the door. I want them so mistrustful and frightened that they go back to their countries of origin. Criminals OUGHT to be mistrustful and fearful, and it is a sign of mental and moral weakness to think that they should not be.

And yet you get a street protest by a bunch of kids cutting school, many of whom are probably in this country illegally themselves.

On Tuesday morning, more than 100 students, mostly from Catalina, gathered outside TPD headquarters, 270 S. Stone Ave., to protest the removal of the boy and his family by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Police called Border Patrol officials after they had been told by the family that is had been in the country illegally, police officials said.

But the students, some carrying signs including "Migra (immigration agents) out of our schools," said they should not be afraid they might be yanked from their classrooms by immigration police.

In Arizona, public school districts are forbidden by law to deny an education to any school-age child living here, Tucson Unified School District officials said.

The district's stance on the issue was clear: "We don't want immigration laws enforced on our campuses," said TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer.

He, deputy superintendent Patti Lopez and police officials including Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor, met as the protesters waited in a orderly fashion outside the station.

Pfeuffer said Villaseñor came out to speak with students after their meeting and pointed out that police never would have called the Border Patrol if police hadn't been called to the school for criminal activity.

Villaseñor said police have to ask the question of citizenship when they are taking someone into custody.

Community activist Isabel Garcia questioned that action. And, she added, "You should not have called Border Patrol onto campus."

Someone explain to me why the Border Patrol should not have been called. When you become aware of a violation of the law, that is what ought to happen. Any kid who doesn’t feel safe because they come on campus probably has good reason to feel unsafe, and does not belong at the school – or in this country. And as for the superintendent of the district, may I suggest that if he doesn’t want immigration laws enforced on his district’s campuses, he needs to immediately renounce and return all federal aid of any kind. After all, most Americans don’t want their tax money being spent on illegal aliens of for schools where contempt for the law is openly encouraged. Heck, I hope some courageous member of Congress will seek to add a rider to some bill targeting every penny that TUSD receives in federal money.

And then the cops folded like a cheap hide-a-bed.

Villaseñor said Tuesday afternoon that TPD would no longer call the Border Patrol to churches or schools, although it will cooperate with the Border Patrol.

Got that, folks – churches and schools in Tucson are now law-free zones, where cops will ignore illegal activity. Disgusting.

The time has come for our nation to start enforcing policies penalizing sanctuary cities – and expanding those policies to also penalize sanctuary schools. Not only should schools not be allowed to ignore our nation’s immigration laws, but they should be expected to cooperate with immigration authorities. They should also be forbidden to penalize employees who report immigration violations brought to their attention.

Posted by: Greg at 01:20 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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One local blogger, an open-borders advocate, recently wrote this.

Contrary to popular belief, supporting the building of a wall between Mexico and the United States is not a conservative value. Instead it is fiscally, incredibly, stupid. Spending $7Billion on a wall instead of spending $7Billion on law enforcement of those who hire illegal workers is an incredibly stupid idea but one that is easy to understand by the simple-minded who can't think past the one-liners. One that makes true fiscal conservatives shake their heads in disbelief. Candidates supporting building a wall are courting the ultra-right wingers and ignorant hate mongers and will lose the support of the true fiscally conservatives as well as the liberal and moderate voters.

Don't you just love the tolerance and respect dripping from every word that John wrote there? And don't you love the fact that he ignores the fact that most of us "ultra-right wingers and ignorant hate mongers" are actually quite supportive of employer sanctions, and that it is his own political allies who are desperate to stop employer sanctions through the courts because it might stop the hiring of illegals?

And did you notice the one thing that he didn't claim -- he never says that a fence won't work to stop illegal immigration.

Because it does.

PALOMAS, MEXICO — At this fabled border crossing, where the last armed conflict between the United States and Mexico flared, the rancorous debate over the new U.S. anti-immigrant fence has been resolved.

The fence works, residents north and south of it say. At least it works for now on this snippet of the line.

"You hear it all the time: Fences don't work. Fences don't work," said Mark Winder, a transplanted New Englander and part-time deputy sheriff who lives on a small ranch outside Columbus, N.M., where a 3-mile stretch of wall was completed in August. "I live 2½ miles from the border, and the fence is working."

Many merchants agree in Palomas, once a sleepy farm town, now a booming haven for smugglers.

"The fence has destroyed the economy here," said Fabiola Cuellar, a hardware-store clerk on the main street of Palomas who used to sell supplies to the throngs heading north from here. "Things are going back to the way they were before."

Of course, with only about one-fifth of the fence complete, migrants from Mexico and other countries who had planned to cross the border illegally in places such as Palomas-Columbus can simply go elsewhere.

And if you read the article, you will find out that American property owners report the same thing -- the fence is stopping illegals from entering the US and trespassing upon (and destroying) their property. I can only imagine the resulting drop in crime statistics that accompanies this decrease.

H/T RWN

Posted by: Greg at 11:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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